I must have spent the better part of an hour crawling over those cases, and at length I lay down on my back from sheer exhaustion. My shoulders ached with crouching in that cramped position and my knees were sore. I had tapped and pulled at the tops of countless cases. I had called her name. All in vain. And now I had only about ten feet to go to the for’ard end of the hold. And I had a feeling that those ten feet would yield no more than the rest. I was conscious, too, of the fact that I should by now be thinking of how to contact Schmidt and David, and what we were going to do to prevent the ship reaching Germany.
I decided to finish my search of the hold as quickly as possible and then try my luck on deck. I had half risen to my feet, when a grating sound checked me. The bulkhead door was being slid back. I looked wildly about me. There was no cover on those cases. I scrambled quickly to a position against the for’ard bulkhead. I slid along it to the corner, and waited, breathing hard.
But though the glow of the torch showed above the top of the cases, the rope was not pulled taut and no one appeared to be climbing to my hiding-place. The soft murmur of a voice reached me. I crawled across the munition cases. Suddenly I recognised the voice and stiffened. It was Sedel’s. I went on until I could actually peer over the top of the cases. Sedel and one of the volunteers were standing at the bottom of the well formed by the cases and the recess of the bulkhead. The volunteer held a hurricane lantern and its light cast fantastic shadows of their heads on the steel plates of the bulkhead.
But though my eyes took in the details of the scene in that one quick glance, what they centred on was the side of one of the cases opposite the bulkhead door. This had been let down like a flap. Sedel was speaking. His voice was soft and I only caught a phrase here and there. I heard the word ‘bait’ followed by that effeminate titter of his. ‘… the boy friend,’ he said. ‘Your father’ was mentioned, then I heard my own name. He laughed again and said rather louder, ‘I just thought you’d like to know that everything has gone off according to plan, Miss Schmidt. Close her up now, Hans. Pleasant dreams. We shall be in the Reich tomorrow.’
There was the bang of the case being closed and then the light disappeared and the bulkhead door grated as it was closed.
I waited for more than ten minutes before venturing down. The first thing I did was to go over to the bulkhead door. Inch by inch, so that it made hardly a sound, I pressed it back. As soon as there was room I squeezed through. The trapdoor was closed. All was dark in the main hold. The only sound was the slapping of the water against the sides of the ship and the incessant throbbing of the engines. I stood there a while, listening and wondering whether this was perhaps a trap. Supposing they knew I had not left the ship? Supposing they had not gone out by the trapdoor, but were hiding up there among the tanks?
Well, I had to risk that. I slid the bulkhead door back again and switched on my torch. It did not take me long to locate the dummy case. I had marked it carefully and, searching across the surface, I found tiny holes at the corners. The thing was bolted on the inside and the bolts were operated, I discovered, by a large screw in the centre. Fortunately I had a sixpence on me and the groove of the screw was big enough for me to turn it with this.
I lowered the flap. Freya’s eyes were open, but she could not move her head. A canvas gag was stretched tightly across her mouth and fixed on each side of her head to the bottom of the case. Her arms and legs were bound to wooden supports in much the same way as mine had been strapped to the clamps in the deed-box. I told her who I was as I set to work on the gag. I don’t think she believed me, for her first words to me when I had removed the gag were, ‘Will you shine the torch on your face?’ I did so. ‘Then you really are Andrew Kilmartin,’ she said, and smiled. It was only then that I realised that she must have seen the evening papers the day before and had thought me dead. I said no more then, for her eyes were closed.
It took me some time to untie the knots. But at length she was free and I picked her up in my arms and lifted her out of her cramped quarters. Quickly I worked at her hands and legs to restore the circulation. Every moment I was afraid someone would come through from the main hold and discover me in the act of releasing her.
It must have been a quarter of an hour before she was able to move her limbs freely enough to be able to attempt the ladder. I closed up the case and slid back the bulkhead door. We passed through, and closing the door behind us, began the ascent of the ladder. How she managed it, I don’t know. She had been in that dummy munition case for well over twelve hours and her limbs were stiff and very painful. Yet I dared not delay longer than was absolutely necessary. I sent her up first, myself following very close so that she could rest her weight on my shoulder. Even so it was a struggle and once or twice I was certain we must both fall.
At length we were safe among the tanks. I think she fainted with the reaction then. She lay very still for a while, whilst I chafed her limbs. After some time she stirred and sat up. I felt her hand on mine. ‘It really is you, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t dream that?’
‘You thought I was dead?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was all over the papers on … What’s today?’
I glanced at my watch. ‘We’re ten minutes into Monday,’ I said.
‘And on the Thirlmere headed for Germany?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We should reach Norwegian territorial waters about ten in the morning.’
‘Have they got the boat on board?’
‘Yes. And your father is on board, too.’
‘I know. That man Sedel told me before you let me out. Franzie thought he was being so clever, and they knew all the time. Sedel said they also had David.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ I said. And then added, ‘He came on board quite openly for the dedication ceremony as a cameraman. Your father had told him they had brought you on board in a tank and he came to rescue you.’
‘I know.’ She spoke dispiritedly. ‘I was the bait. Sedel told me that. How well their scheme has worked — Franzie, David, and you, too! Why did you come on board?’
‘I was determined to stop the engine from getting out of the country somehow,’ I said.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I’m glad it was not on account of me.’
‘I did not know you were on board until I met David,’ I explained. Then I told her how I had escaped from the vaults of Marburgs and of my flight through the sewers. ‘You see,’ I finished, ‘I just had to square up accounts somehow.’
She pressed my hand and in the darkness I sensed that she was smiling. ‘The obstinate Scot in you, Andrew.’ And she gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Franzie insists that your obstinacy is the key to your whole character.’
I was glad of the darkness. The blood had rushed to my cheeks at her use of my Christian name, and I should have hated her to notice it. ‘How did you fall into their clutches?’ I asked.
Apparently she had picked up an ‘18’ bus and got out at Guildford Street. They had been waiting for her outside the digs. There had been a black saloon car at the kerb and a uniformed chauffeur had come up to her just as she was getting out her key. He was in Bart’s livery. Would she come at once to the hospital? Mr Kilmartin had been brought there and was asking for her. He had been badly cut up in a car smash. She had hesitated. It was the old dodge and she was suspicious. Then he played his trump card. He showed her the evening paper. He had relied on her not reading the story through and discovering where the accident was supposed to have taken place. When she pointed out that I was supposed to be dead, he told her that the journalists were a little premature, that was all. Then she had got into the car. And of course they had to stop and pick up a famous surgeon from his home in Gray’s Inn. Chloroform had done the rest. She did not know anything about being brought on board in a tank. The first thing she had remembered was the cramped feeling of that case.